Dub4 addresses a key challenge of autonomy – the question of where the vehicle is at any point in time. Currently running as the primary localiser on Oxbotica’s driverless car prototype, Geni, and on the GATEway pods in Greenwich, London, the software uses a single stereo camera mounted onto the car to determine its precise position and orientation in the world. With this localisation information, the software is then able to create and navigate using vision based maps in highly unstructured environments without any reliance on GPS or expensive laser-based techniques.

‘We’re excited to be working on deployment of our class-leading Dub4 software solution, as part of our mission to achieve Level 4 autonomy by 2020. What we’ve done with Dub4 has never been done before and it represents a seismic shift for the self-driving vehicle industry, enabling a move away from GPS and 3D laser-based approaches. We’re paving the way for more affordable and accurate solutions in the industry’, said Chief Executive Officer, Graeme Smith, Oxbotica.

Signalling a shift in driverless technology from expensive lasers to camera-based vision software, Dub4 is the first localisation system to rely purely on camera technology. Developed by Oxbotica and the researchers at Oxford University’s Oxford Robotics Institute, Dub4 has been tested on thousands of kilometres of data across different cities, warehouses and off-road environments. The software automatically updates its model of the world to adapt to changing environmental conditions such weather, lighting and season. Dub4 is robust where GPS technology is prone to failure – under tree cover, in urban canyons and indoors.

Operating as a standalone application on commodity PC hardware, Dub4 can be integrated onto any platform equipped with cameras and used to provide low-cost localisation and navigation to applications ranging from warehousing to self-driving vehicles.